Technological Signs relating to Christ’s Coming are being fulfilled.

[cv5]

https://barrysetterfield.org/Signs/Signs.html

"First: Joel 2:30-31 states, "And I will show wonders in the heavens, and in the earth blood and fire and pillars of smoke. And the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and terrible Day of the Lord comes.” The great & terrible Day of the Lord is also known as the “Great Tribulation” in the New Testament. This is a period of 7 years just prior Christ’s Millennial reign.

Pillars of smoke? The Hebrew word translated "pillars" is "timmorah." It is used 21 times in the Old Testament. Only twice is the word translated as "pillars." The other 19 times it is translated as "palm tree." So there is to be "blood and fire and palm-trees of smoke." That is a very accurate picturing of the hydrogen bomb. The atomic bomb (on the right, below) is referred to as a mushroom cloud, not a pillar. But look at the hydrogen bomb, on the left below."

Nahum 2:3-4 reads:“Chariots of flashing steel will rage in the streets. They will jostle one against another in the broad roads; they will run like the lightning; they will move with blazing torches… In the day of His preparation to Come.”

How else could cars and trucks have been described at that time?

In the middle of describing the Lord’s Return, the prophet Isaiah (60:8) stops and asks: “Who are these that fly like a cloud, and as the doves to their windows?”

​

Fourth: Prophecies in Amos 9:2 and Obadiah 4 may imply space-craft just prior to the Tribulation.

Amos 9:2 -- "Though you climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring you down … says the Lord God, who touches the earth and it melts (in the Tribulation)."

Obadiah 4 -- "Though you exalt yourself and … set your nest among the stars, from there I will bring you down (in the Tribulation), says the LORD."

 

[Locoponydirtman]

Interesting observation.
Ill will have to read those passages for full context.

 

[cv5]

Interesting observation.
Ill will have to read those passages for full context.

Barry Setterfield should always be taken very very seriously. The man has forgotten more than I will ever know.

 

[IsaiahA]

The prophesy about "the great and terrible day of the LORD" refers to the judgment on Israel in 70AD, and it is mentioned twice in the OT.

Speaking to the "children of Zion" Joel 2:23 -
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Joel 2:31)

Peter said that was what was happening at Pentecost before that day in Acts chapter 2.

The message to Israel, "The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi." (Mal 1:1)
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Mal 4:5)

Jesus applied this reference to Elijah to John the Baptist in Matt. 11:14

What in the context of these passages would lead one to believe it speaks of an event still in our future, 2500 years later?

 

[VARob]

What in the context of these passages would lead one to believe it speaks of an event still in our future, 2500 years later?

The fact that it hasn't happened yet...

 

[cv5]

The prophesy about "the great and terrible day of the LORD" refers to the judgment on Israel in 70AD, and it is mentioned twice in the OT.

Speaking to the "children of Zion" Joel 2:23 -
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Joel 2:31)

Peter said that was what was happening at Pentecost before that day in Acts chapter 2.

The message to Israel, "The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi." (Mal 1:1)
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Mal 4:5)

Jesus applied this reference to Elijah to John the Baptist in Matt. 11:14

What in the context of these passages would lead one to believe it speaks of an event still in our future, 2500 years later?

No, you've got that all wrong. Yet future.
Not many full preterists around here. For very many very good reasons.

 

[HeIsHere]

The prophesy about "the great and terrible day of the LORD" refers to the judgment on Israel in 70AD, and it is mentioned twice in the OT.

Speaking to the "children of Zion" Joel 2:23 -
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Joel 2:31)

Peter said that was what was happening at Pentecost before that day in Acts chapter 2.

The message to Israel, "The burden of the word of the LORD to Israel by Malachi." (Mal 1:1)
"Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and terrible day of the LORD come." (Mal 4:5)

Jesus applied this reference to Elijah to John the Baptist in Matt. 11:14

What in the context of these passages would lead one to believe it speaks of an event still in our future, 2500 years later?

Correct. But it does sell books and movies.

 

[IsaiahA]

No, you've got that all wrong. Yet future.
Not many full preterists around here. For very many very good reasons.

Was the 18th century Methodist Joseph Benson a full preterist? His note on Joel 2:31
"The expressions here used, in their literal sense, import the failing of light in the sun and moon, whether by eclipses or any other cause, such as perhaps, at the time here referred to, by the prodigious quantity of smoke arising from the burning of cities, towns, and villages on every side, and also of Jerusalem itself, which undoubtedly was sufficient to obscure the heavenly luminaries for some time. Or, the expression in this verse may be interpreted figuratively of the dark and melancholy state of public affairs before and at the destruction of the Jewish nation by the Romans, and of the utter overthrow of their state and government: see note on Isaiah 13:9-10. The last destruction of Jerusalem, the desolation of Judea, and the prodigious slaughter made of the Jews, might with great propriety be called, as it is here, The great and terrible day of the Lord; since the divine justice was then executed with a severity which had never been used before toward the Jewish people. The calamities of those times were indeed dreadful, almost beyond description, and seem to have exceeded any thing that any other nation had ever suffered; which was agreeable to what Moses, in the very beginning of their state, had foretold should happen to them, if ever, by their disobedience to God’s commands, and their other crimes, they should fill up the measure of their iniquity"
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rbc/joel-2.html

Was the 18th century Baptist John Gill a full preterist? His note on Joel 2:31
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,.... Not by eclipses, as Aben Ezra; but by the clouds of smoke arising from the burning of towns and cities, which would be so great as to obscure the sun, and through which the moon would look like blood: or all, this may be understood in a figurative sense of the change that should be made in the ecclesiastic and civil state of the Jewish nation, signified by the "heavens" and "earth"; and particularly that their king or kingdom should be in a low, mean, and distressed condition, designed by the sun; and the change of their priesthood is signified by the "moon": so Vitringa on Isaiah 24:23; interprets the "sun" here of King Agrippa, the last king of the Jews in obscurity; and the "moon" of Ananias junior, the high priest, slain by the zealots:

before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come; not the fall of Gog and Magog, as Kimchi; not the day of the last judgment, but of the destruction of Jerusalem; not by the Chaldeans, but by the Romans; their last destruction, which was very great and terrible indeed, and in which there was a manifest appearance of the hand and power of God; see Malachi 4:1. Maimonides u interprets it of the destruction of Sennacherib near Jerusalem; but if that sense is not acceptable, he proposes that of the destruction of Gog and Magog, in the times of the Messiah."
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/geb/joel-2.html

Neither Joseph Benson nor John Gill were full preterists and neither am I. I merely read scripture in its context. I do believe the great judgments of God have similarities but a passage has one meaning and one meaning only.

 

[cv5]

Was the 18th century Methodist Joseph Benson a full preterist? His note on Joel 2:31
"The expressions here used, in their literal sense, import the failing of light in the sun and moon, whether by eclipses or any other cause, such as perhaps, at the time here referred to, by the prodigious quantity of smoke arising from the burning of cities, towns, and villages on every side, and also of Jerusalem itself, which undoubtedly was sufficient to obscure the heavenly luminaries for some time. Or, the expression in this verse may be interpreted figuratively of the dark and melancholy state of public affairs before and at the destruction of the Jewish nation by the Romans, and of the utter overthrow of their state and government: see note on Isaiah 13:9-10. The last destruction of Jerusalem, the desolation of Judea, and the prodigious slaughter made of the Jews, might with great propriety be called, as it is here, The great and terrible day of the Lord; since the divine justice was then executed with a severity which had never been used before toward the Jewish people. The calamities of those times were indeed dreadful, almost beyond description, and seem to have exceeded any thing that any other nation had ever suffered; which was agreeable to what Moses, in the very beginning of their state, had foretold should happen to them, if ever, by their disobedience to God’s commands, and their other crimes, they should fill up the measure of their iniquity"
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/rbc/joel-2.html

Was the 18th century Baptist John Gill a full preterist? His note on Joel 2:31
"The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,.... Not by eclipses, as Aben Ezra; but by the clouds of smoke arising from the burning of towns and cities, which would be so great as to obscure the sun, and through which the moon would look like blood: or all, this may be understood in a figurative sense of the change that should be made in the ecclesiastic and civil state of the Jewish nation, signified by the "heavens" and "earth"; and particularly that their king or kingdom should be in a low, mean, and distressed condition, designed by the sun; and the change of their priesthood is signified by the "moon": so Vitringa on Isaiah 24:23; interprets the "sun" here of King Agrippa, the last king of the Jews in obscurity; and the "moon" of Ananias junior, the high priest, slain by the zealots:

before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come; not the fall of Gog and Magog, as Kimchi; not the day of the last judgment, but of the destruction of Jerusalem; not by the Chaldeans, but by the Romans; their last destruction, which was very great and terrible indeed, and in which there was a manifest appearance of the hand and power of God; see Malachi 4:1. Maimonides u interprets it of the destruction of Sennacherib near Jerusalem; but if that sense is not acceptable, he proposes that of the destruction of Gog and Magog, in the times of the Messiah."
https://www.studylight.org/commentaries/eng/geb/joel-2.html

Neither Joseph Benson nor John Gill were full preterists and neither am I. I merely read scripture in its context. I do believe the great judgments of God have similarities but a passage has one meaning and one meaning only.

Dude.......R.C. Sproul was more or less a preterist. And he was wrong too.

When you come to actually grasp all the relevant passages and the whole council of God, you are neither a preterist nor an amillennialist, and believe in a pre-trib rapture.

 

[IsaiahA]

Dude.......R.C. Sproul was more or less a preterist. And he was wrong too.

When you come to actually grasp all the relevant passages and the whole council of God, you are neither a preterist nor an amillennialist, and believe in a pre-trib rapture.

Growing up with the Scofield Bible, it took a while until I finally saw how the pre-trib, pre-mil annotations so often directly contradicted the Scriptures themselves. Dispensationalism reads into the Scriptures the erroneous and fanciful reasoning of men. I remember thinking, after being taught, that Jesus would come rapture me and other believers around 1988 and I'd not have to see physical death in old age, or the terrors of Matthew 24, which actually describe 70AD as Jesus himself said. I happen to be a scriptural post-mil, not a social gospel post-mil. I interpret literally, more consistently than the dispensationalists.

"I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place." (Matt 24:34) That is the Weymouth NT but other translations are in agreement such as the NEB and REB.

 

[Locoponydirtman]

Huh? I was a pre trib guy until i understood the more of the scriptures in the context of time and the history of the church. Now i think that the events of 70 ad fulfilled many of the prophecies.
I know a lor of people believe that the 1948 establishment of the nation state of Israel was fulfillment of the prophecy in Dueteronomy but if you read the full passage about the restoration of Israel, they first have to return to God and repent which has not happened. That nation is a heathen nation like all nations; Babylon.

 

[HeIsHere]

"I tell you in solemn truth that the present generation will certainly not pass away without all these things having first taken place." (Matt 24:34) That is the Weymouth NT but other translations are in agreement such as the NEB and REB.

Amen, people are slowly seeing futurism does not hold up under scrutiny.

 

[VARob]

Amen, people are slowly seeing futurism does not hold up under scrutiny.

I disagree. I think the closer you look, the bigger it gets.

 

[cv5]

Amen, people are slowly seeing futurism does not hold up under scrutiny.

Bro....look out your window, and tell me the prophesied biblical end-times are not manifesting themselves.

They are. Patently obvious to a "futurist".

 

[HealthAndHappiness]

I don't have time to comment specifically, but just want us to remember that OT prophesies often had an immediate fulfillment and a double fulfilment later. Some also had a more symbolic shadow fulfillment. I take a literal view of the Bible unless otherwise stated, or if it's obviously not. That said, we can certainly see how modern technology makes many prophetic mysteries quite plausible. There are interesting examples in the O.P.

 

[cv5]

Huh? I was a pre trib guy until i understood the more of the scriptures in the context of time and the history of the church. Now i think that the events of 70 ad fulfilled many of the prophecies.
I know a lor of people believe that the 1948 establishment of the nation state of Israel was fulfillment of the prophecy in Dueteronomy but if you read the full passage about the restoration of Israel, they first have to return to God and repent which has not happened. That nation is a heathen nation like all nations; Babylon.

I think not. Israel MUST be a national entity BEFORE they are redeemed at the SC.
Not only that but also the Magog invasion which precedes the SC.

And....they are. Israel existing at all, right now, quashes the pretentions of the amillentialists and preterists into oblivion IMO.

And yes, I do believe that the times of the gentiles have been fulfilled for Israel. No reason to think otherwise, seeing that they are indeed a fully sovereign nation. Something that they WERE NOT even in the time of Jesus.

And yes, Ezekiel 4 (360 years remaining) X Leviticus 26 (7 more times) = 2520 360 day years.
And yes, this calculates quite comfortably to May 14, 1948 from 606 BC captivity of the nation aka times of the gentiles.
And yes this calculates quite comfortably to June 7, 1967 from 587 BC desolations of Jerusalem.

Ezekiel’s 430 Days (watchmanbiblestudy.com)

 

[cv5]

That said, we can certainly see how modern technology makes many prophetic mysteries quite plausible.

And as clearly as a bell. Technological advancements that are ONLY here today are ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL to fulfilling end-time prophecy. Furthermore, statements by the prophets, formerly abstruse, now make PERFECT sense.

 

[cv5]

Huh? I was a pre trib guy until i understood the more of the scriptures in the context of time and the history of the church. Now i think that the events of 70 ad fulfilled many of the prophecies.
I know a lor of people believe that the 1948 establishment of the nation state of Israel was fulfillment of the prophecy in Dueteronomy but if you read the full passage about the restoration of Israel, they first have to return to God and repent which has not happened. That nation is a heathen nation like all nations; Babylon.

The thing is.....a "futurist" will NEVER succumb to another "view". Why would and how could he trade Biblical literacy and prophetic understanding for illiteracy and ignorance?

Not gonna happen.

 

[HeIsHere]

Bro....look out your window, and tell me the prophesied biblical end-times are not manifesting themselves.

They are. Patently obvious to a "futurist".

It is a counterfeit, Satan is doesn't give up to lead people astray from the truth.
The new state of Israel ... still waiting on the end times significance, God fulfills 100% what He states.

Satan not so much.

 

[HeIsHere]

I disagree. I think the closer you look, the bigger it gets.

It is a counterfeit, Satan knows what is in the scripture.